


the early bird

by writedeku



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Enemies, M/M, Magic Powers, Princes & Princesses, maybe enemies to lovers if i continue this, old timey royalty au, prince and rebel hoho, yeah ok its cliche n so what !! so what !
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: There’s a man there, with dark, charcoal hair that’s been pushed up and out of his face. He wears a gilded mask made of the same quartz everyone else has, but there’s a certain edge to the way his shoulders are pushed back and the angle of his head that makes him seem important—or like someone who regarded himself as important.(Or, the AU where Kuroo, a ruthless crown prince with the intelligence to back him up, finds himself in a precarious position with the leader of the rebel alliance, Bokuto Koutarou.)
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	the early bird

**Author's Note:**

> this was a valentines day exchange, so happy valentines to haz!! i really hope you liked this piece, i know it seems to end quite abruptly but i may continue this at a later date so stay tuned!!

The crimson cloth clings to the bridge of his nose in an almost perfect fit, the near velvet material moulding easily to the curves and contours of his face. The ribbons that dangle from the end are carefully lifted and tied behind his head in a long, drooping bow, the colour identical to the jet-black of his hair, making it seem longer than it is, like a ponytail dangles from the back of his head. 

“I can still tell that it is you,” a soft voice says behind him as gentle hands fix silver earrings to the lobes of both his ears, and clips a rubied cuff along the rim of his left. “You’ve got such an insufferable smirk on.” 

Kuroo looks up from where he’s been regaling his reflection and his eyes meet Kenma’s in the ornate mirror. “ _You_ can, but the lords and ladies of the distant lands won’t.” 

“You’ll distinguish yourself from the rest,” Kenma continues, slipping silver rings over his fingers and a golden cuff onto his wrist. “You’re dripping with opulence. Who else but the Crown Prince would be able to put on such a showing?”

Kuroo takes this into consideration and removes most of the rings left one, and the golden cuff. 

“Pah. The ruby.”

“I like the ruby,” Kuroo says, pout on his face. “Don’t be mean to me.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Kenma says, though the roll of his eyes suggests otherwise. He stands back and fixes a strand of his hair, though the end result doesn’t make a striking difference to Kuroo. He’s not a fan of his hair like this anyway, all swept to the side and parted in the middle. He’s always much preferred the way it looked naturally. 

Granted, that was a mess, but it was _his_ mess. A trademark, if you will. 

“Have all the guests arrived?” 

“Mhmm,” Kenma nods, sparing a glance to the thickly curtained windows, shutting the outside off from the Palace. “Everyone is in place. We’ve got the guards on the staircases, the cellars, snipers on the rooftops.” 

“And Yaku—” 

“In position, yes.” 

“He wasn’t happy about it,” Kuroo raises an eyebrow, his sentence both a question and a statement. 

“He definitely was not,” Kenma confirms. His mouth turns down at the corners when he thinks about the near tantrum he had on his hands—sure, it wasn’t very glamorous, but it was a very important position that only he could fill. There was no one else. “I had Lev drop a plate to distract him.” 

“Good thinking. Shall I head down then?”

“It would be good to do it soon, yes. If you’re right and they’re really planning to—” 

“Kenma, my love, my dear, when have I ever been wrong?”

Kenma gives him a look that tells him to shut up or he’ll gladly partake in a riveting retelling of all of Kuroo’s mistakes, a list which he’s sure will start with the incident with the Crows. Kuroo laughs, ruffles his hair, and crosses the room to throw open the heavy curtains to reveal the window. 

The double-panelled window opens silently, and Kuroo clambers easily outside of the window onto the small parapet, then begins carefully scaling the wall down, the exposed brick and stone of the castle making his steps easy. It surely wasn’t the amount of times he’d taken this route to escape from the clutches of his parents or the Royal Tutor that made him so experienced in clambering around on the castle walls. 

Kenma watches him descent with a hint of boredom around his tired eyes. When Kuroo’s feet land safely on the grass, he turns closes the window, pulls the curtains back over the glass, and blows out the candles in the room.

Kuroo slinks under the darkness of the new moon over to the staff’s entrance, and weaves his way through the kitchen. Lev claps him on the back and tells him he looks amazing, to which Kuroo grins, easy and arrogant, before slipping out behind a gaggle of waiters bringing champagne. 

The ballroom is filled with nearly a hundred people in their finest dress, all clothed and masked in some way or form. The women have their hair piled on their heads and dresses that sweep the floor as they walk, the men, like Kuroo, have fitted suits of varying colours. 

Kuroo’s crimson blends in easily with the rest of the Lords of the region, his cuffed ear glittering under the chandeliers. He slots himself easily into the crowd, champagne flute in one hand, a small piece of cake in the other. Winding around the people, he stops at a lady bearing the colours of the Owl and bows his head to her. 

“Lovely evening,” he greets, taking her hand in his and bringing it up to press a gentle kiss to. 

It always hurts. Always. Kuroo has not known a time when the information he sought came smoothly, but perhaps that will always be his price to pay. His head throbs, his eyes water, and his tongue feels like sandpaper. 

Straightening, he asks, “how are you doing?”

The polite small talk he exchanges with the lady is cursory and the bare minimum. Kuroo’s eyes are on someone else in the far distance, another woman with golden hoops and quartz on her bosom,but as the dress code demanded, dressed otherwise entirely in red. He excuses himself and makes his way through the crowd once more, stopping to talk to others along the way, refill his champagne glass, until he’s standing in front of the woman and kissing her fingertips. 

His vision swims. He hates doing this so many times in a night. This woman has nothing particularly useful either, just careful hands cutting and sewing masks into place. Kuroo doesn’t waste his time on her. Stalking off, he dances with three girls and a man, helps himself to more food from the buffet, and drinks three glasses of champagne to hopefully dull the throbbing in his brain. 

He’s about to call off the plan, find some other way—maybe start a fire and see who rushes upstairs instead of out the double doors, when the crowd parts a little and he sees right through to the center of the ballroom.

There’s a man there, with dark, charcoal hair that’s been pushed up and out of his face. He wears a gilded mask made of the same quartz everyone else wears, but there’s a certain edge to the way his shoulders are pushed back and the angle of his head that makes him seem important—or like someone who regarded himself as important. Kuroo feels his skin crawl when the man looks directly at him, but fights back the shudder with a charming smile and a brisk walk across the dance floor to stand directly in front of him. 

Before they say anything, Kuroo steels his stomach and bends, taking the man’s hand—soft and smooth, calloused only by the hold of a pen—and presses his lips to them.

His body rejects the memories almost instantaneously.Squeezing his eyes shut against the gag in his throat and the tears in his eyes. His stomach churns nauseatingly as his eyes flash with images of three men hidden in the rafters, one in the kitchen, chef’s hat falling off his head, and the sound of frantic feet on a carpeted staircase.

Through sheer force of will, Kuroo straightens his back. “Pleasure,” he wheezes, his voice strained from the effort of even remaining upright. “Sorry about that,” he says, dropping the man’s hand as though he’s suddenly realised what he’s done. “Force of habit.” Crooking his lips upwards into a painful smile, he bows once again and asks, “so, what do you think of the night so far?”

The man studies him. Through the shadow of the uncompromising mask, most of the man’s upperface is shadowed, but two striking golden suns peer out from the gloom, regarding him with curiosity and intrigue. “I just wish it was more exciting,” the man says, his voice deep but light, his accent well-educated and crisp, yet bearing hints of roughness that suggest time spent around unsavoury friends. 

“It is a formal ball,” Kuroo laughs. “I’m not sure what kind of excitement you’d like. But I’ll definitely have a word with our chief of operations. Perhaps a more upbeat band would be to your liking.” 

“Yeah,” the man grins, a flash of white teeth. “Waltzing just isn’t for me. Have you ever done other types of dancing?”

“In the bathroom,” Kuroo tilts his head. “Sure.” 

“Hah! It’s more fun with two,” the man grabs his shoulder and spins him around in a circle, then takes his hand and pulls him along the sidewalk. The twirls aren’t helping his nausea, so he welcomes the brief stride with gladness, before the man stops and takes both his hands in his. 

Kuroo raises an eyebrow as the man pulls his left arm toward him, then pushes it back at the same time he pulls his right arm towards him. Under his breath, he’s humming an almost jazzy sort of tune, with numerous dadums and dadas. Then his feet start moving, pulling Kuroo in close while taking a step back. A small grin flashes across his lips, then Kuroo is whisked across the floor, led easily and easily led—he finds he falls into rhythm without thinking much about it, the weight of the man’s hand on the small of his back teasing and featherlight. There’s a wicked sort of light in the man’s eyes now, his pupils dilated, a laugh always on the edge of his tongue. 

The ballroom is looking at them now, two men doing an odd, brisk waltz thing, throwing their bodies around and arms in the air—the thrill is almost something else. Anyone who wasn’t Kuroo would probably have forgotten their mission, too caught up in a guileless smile and warm breath against their ear, a tongue playing with the rubied cuff when his face is turned from the crowd. 

But he’s the Crown Prince, chief strategist and his parents are sick and asleep in the room upstairs. And while nobody should know that his parents are sick—Kuroo’s made sure not a word left the castle, and the castle itself is impenetrable, here is Bokuto on his doorstep with a select handful of men ready to run up the stairs and attack them at their most vulnerable. 

He was always prepared for a situation like this. Kuroo’s ability just...helps him get the edge. 

With a quick twirl, he releases the man into the crowd with a soft sort of expression on his face. “Wait five minutes,” he whispers, “then come upstairs. I’ll be in the third room on the left. Door unlocked.” 

The man grins at him, crazed light in his eyes. His mouth forms words but Kuroo doesn’t stick around to hear if it’s a rejection or something along the lines of a low whistle, he turns and ascends the stairs quickly, knocking twice on the dumbwaiter that connects the basement kitchens to the second floor before disappearing down the corridor. 

It is from his position, sheltered in a little alcove meant for a statue, where he watches as the man—-Bokuto Koutarou, for who else could he be but the commander of the rebel forces—falls in surprise down the stairs as Yaku, childhood friend and irreplaceable member of Kuroo’s personal guard, leaps out of the dumbwaiter, yelling about the crick in his neck from being curled up in there for nearly two hours now. Fifteen more guards rush out from the corridors on either side, taking out five of the men Bokuto brought upstairs with him. 

Still, one manages to get away and clambours hastily up the stairs. Kuroo watches him look down the first corridor, then the other, and stare right into Kuroo’s bottomless eyes, then his eyes slide to the arrow pointed right at his chest. 

“You know,” Kuroo drawls, pulling back tightly on the string. “Using the ball to stage a coup is _really_ not the most ingenious of plans. Turn around, hands above your head, or I let it go.” 

Bokuto looks up from where Lev has sat on him and tied him up with the draperies. Kuroo’s eyes glance toward him—and nearly flinches at the look of victory on his face and the shock of dull, white hair that gradually becomes brighter as the ash he used to dye his hair rubs off onto the velvet curtains. Kuroo has never known Bokuto to have white hair, and he’s had a couple of impersonal, brief meetings with him, during protests, strikes and the like. The fact that he’s been misled for nearly a year now makes his blood boil. 

Kuroo likes knowing everything. Kuroo prides himself on knowing everything. The fact that something as simple as a hair colour has eluded him feels him with an irrational sense of rage.

“Do you think we’re stupid?” He asks, his voice quiet but resounding like a gunshot in the stairwell. “Don’t answer that. Of course you do.” 

“Uh,” Kuroo blinks at him, trying to regain control over the situation. “You’re the one tied up in the curtains. _I’m_ holding a bow and arrow. Can we please be a little bit more aware of the situation?”

Bokuto shakes his head vigorously and his mask falls from his face, revealing a set of handsome features that has Kuroo _objectively_ admiring, not that he’d fraternise with the enemy outside of duty. It looks as though he is waiting for something, because he stares at Kuroo with an odd sort of smile, crooked up at the corners. 

One heartbeat. 

Two. 

Then—a scream from the ballroom. The sound of shattering glass. 

Kuroo’s head turns towards the commotion and then everything happens at once—the guard rushes him, making him stab him in the neck with a spare arrow. Bokuto laughs and Lev yelps and suddenly he’s gone, the curtains loose at his feet as he sprints down the stairs.

“Hey!” Lev and Yaku yell at the same time, charging after him into the panicked crowd. Kuroo curses—quite a lot, actually, very un-princelike—and then charges in the opposite direction. 

Up the stairs, down the corridor, up another, through two sets of double doors, down a hatch _please let me be wrong please let me be wrong please_ —and it’s gone. 

“Fuck!” 

The quartz owl that used to sit in what had to be the most heavily guarded room in the entirety of the castle no longer sits in its box on the shelf. A symbol of Bokuto’s territory, Kuroo’s parents had taken it from hismonarch when their kingdom annexed the territory in order to gain access to the sea. Being a landlocked nation wasn’t good in these troubled times. Fisheries and a competent navy were vital during periods of drought and bad weather. Sure, annexing a small nation probably wasn’t the most peaceful way to do it, but to go through the nation would let them put too much pressure upon the kingdom and grant them too much sway over their internal affairs. It simply wouldn’t do. Besides, it’s not like the monarch had been doing very well, and corruption was as commonplace as rat droppings and cholera. 

But now that Bokuto had it, it would probably legitimise his cause and allow the rebel movement to gain even more traction. 

“Fuck,” Kuroo says again. How did he—when did he—all the guards that were stationed around the castle, where did they all go? How did he not see what Bokuto had in mind? He’s always able to see the thing they thought most about during the week leading up to a kiss. No one’s ever— 

“Unless he knew about my ability in advance,” he hisses, nails digging into his palm. “What a fucking ass—” 

He’s going to kill Bokuto Koutaoru. Marching down the stairs, he’s pleased to note that Yaku and Yamamoto have gotten a handle on the situation in the ballroom, and that everyone seems perturbed but not panicked. A survey of the surroundings and Lev’s disappointed expression lets him know that Bokuto has managed to escape. Biting back a curse—there’s simply no time now—Kuroo slips out the servant’s exit with quick cat-feet and emerges into the darkness of night. The moonless sky makes the hilly ground treacherous, the soil dry from the drought and prone to slipping away beneath one’s feet. 

Kuroo is well-versed, however, with the terrain around his domain, and he runs smoothly through to the only bridge that connects the hill with the deep ravine that separates it from the main city. When he gets there, however, the dust on the bridge looks undisturbed, almost like nobody had passed through it since the ball began. The two guards were still standing there, bored, one drawing penises in the dirt. 

His trip back to the castle is morose. When he gets back, Kenma is waiting at the main doors with furrowed brows and an almost poisonous look upon his face. As soon as he gets within reach, a white envelope is thrown into his hands, and the man turns on his heel sharply and disappears into the castle. 

Kuroo cautiously opens the envelope. In it is a simple letter, written on the castle’s personal notepads that they leave in the guest rooms. 

_Kuroo —_

_Dancing with you was fun! Don’t you think you and I could get along well?_

_I guess the question I’m trying to ask is:_

_If I see you again, will you take me out to dinner?_

_Bokuto_

Kuroo crumples the letter up in his hands, but later that night, lying awake in a too-big bed, he does think about it. Thinks about his hands on his waist, the timbre of his voice, his lips on his neck. And though he thinks he might quite like getting to know the clever, hot-headed man, he also has a duty. 

It’s truly a pity that Kuroo long since decided his duty would be his life. The next day, it is with a slight twinge of guilt that he announces shoot-on-sight orders for the rebel command, but he doesn’t dwell on it too long. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading the fic!! please do leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed it. you can find me on twitter as narutokin__!


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